DRDO working on bio-diesel fuel for tanks

Published: Sunday, December 30, 2007, 17:02 [IST]

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Mysore, Dec 30 (UNI) With crude oil price soaring and global warming on the rise, the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) is conducting research to effectively use bio-diesel as fuel in tanks and army vehicles.

Talking to UNI here today, DRDO Chief Controller W Selvamurthy said a number of experiments were on at DRDO centres to produce superior quality bio-diesel.

He said the Defence had about 2,000 hectare of unutilised land and it had been decided to use the land for cultivating bio-fuel crops.

As a model project, the DRDO had taken up Jatropha cultivation in 480 acres in Secunderabad.

He said the Council for Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR) had provided the technological support for extracting bio-diesel from Jatropha seeds.

Mr Selvamurthy said bio-diesel, compared to diesel, gets frozen fast in chilli conditions and the DRDO had successfully tackled the problem to enable the army to use the fuel even in high altitudes.